


Milk and Honey

by Gebiurl (fookin_tossah)



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Blowjobs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, I also use lyrics inside of poems that I wrote, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of attempted suicide, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Sad Tyler Joseph, Slow Burn, That's a weird tag, Touch Aversion, Touch-Starved, metaphorical love making?, poetry stuff, some light sex sprinkled at the end, that we're pretending tyler wrote, they eventually turn into a band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 14:25:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10310261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fookin_tossah/pseuds/Gebiurl
Summary: Tyler doesn't like to be touched. Josh shows him he can touch him without using skin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was very hard for me to write. I honestly don't know why I wrote it, but it is very personal to me. I guess I'm still dealing with a lot of things. Anyways. Nothing graphic is written about the rape but the recovery part is tough because it's coming from a very real place. Uhm. Yeah.

Tyler is dead.  
  
That's what the rumors say, anyways. He's always been quiet, always kept to himself. He's never been one to have weird rumors flying about, which is why Josh believes it straight away. Who would lie about Tyler being dead when Tyler is no one?  
  
There's no one to ask, either. His siblings haven't been to school which fuels the rumor.  
  
Brendon told him the news and Josh felt nothing but regret, always having thought the boy to be so, so pretty with dark skin and weary brown eyes. He always told himself he'd talk to the boy. Every day. But he never did. He feels regret.  
  
They're in a small town. Josh has known Tyler his whole life, same with Brendon. And Dallon. And everyone else who's friends with him. This small town is a trap, no one leaves. It's a trap. A trap! He wants to scream at anyone that's new. But he never has.  
  
He wanted to tell Tyler the same thing, it's a trap, to stop being so sad it's not your fault you were born in a trap.   
  
But Tyler is dead.  
  
Tyler is dead.  
  
...........................  
  
Tyler Joseph isn't dead. He returns to school a week later after the rumor started, two weeks completely gone from school. But he's back. All of his siblings come back with him too, surrounding him in a Joseph family wall, no one gets to come in.  
  
Josh notices his eyes, the tired brown eyes look wrecked. The bags under his eyes are so dark, so puffy and his eyes--his eyes. He won't meet anyone's stare.  
  
He keeps his arms as close and tight to his body as he can, making himself small, as if he's taking up too much room in his long gray shirt and black chinos and josh can relate. He can relate.  
  
But Tyler isn't dead and he wants to walk up to the pretty boy with sad eyes and ask him out for ice cream or something, see those sad eyes light up just for him. He wants--he wants....  
  
Tyler walks right past him, never looks up or anything and Josh sighs. No one gets to come in. No one.  
  
.............................  
  
Tyler doesn't speak that week. Josh notices that. He's silent throughout the whole first day and Josh brushes it off with being tired, but he can't be tired five straight days. But the dude looks tired. His eyes are always bloodshot and the bags under them get worse with each passing day.  
  
But the not-speaking thing is Tyler's thing, it always has been. The pushing people away is Tyler's thing. He's always sat in the corner and wrote and doodled away in the his little journal or slept until the bell rang, hiding under a hood.  
  
But he always spoke when spoken too, in hushed, cautious tones, scared of his own voice. Josh likes his voice. Likes the higher register it stays in. He likes the words Tyler uses, likes what Tyler has always had to say.  
  
But this is new.  
  
They're on Greek gods and goddesses. They're talking about everyone's favorites and about the party they're wanting to throw, Ancient Greece themed. Everyone's excited. Everyone's happy.  
  
"Tyler, which one is your favorite?" Some girl across from him asks. She's sweet. She's trying to help. She's trying.  
  
Tyler doesn't look up from where he's staring into the wood of his desk. Doesn't even seem to know he was spoken to. So she tries again. And again, until she stands up and that's when Josh notices him stiffen up. Josh opens his mouth to say something but it's too late, she gently lays her hand on a gray clothed shoulder and Tyler's whole body goes rigid.  
  
"Ty?"  
  
Tyler shakes, he trembles, he quivers under the touch, body vibrating harder and harder until she removes her hand and Tyler is running out of the room, leaving everything behind.  
  
Josh stares at the notebook, the one Tyler brings to every class and works in. He's tempted to grab it, to open it and let himself inside. But he won't do that. He won't take what doesn't belong to him. He won't violate someone's privacy.  
  
He grabs the notebook, still, and the red pen and stuffs it under his own notebooks. He waits until class is dismissed before he's heading down to the bathrooms.  
  
Tyler isn't there.  
  
He heads to the cafeteria.  
  
Tyler isn't there.  
  
He heads to guidance.  
  
Tyler isn't there.  
  
He heads to the nurses office.  
  
Her office door is open but her patient area door is ajar, but only slightly. There's loud heaving he can hear coming from inside. It's so loud and so hard he's worried the person who's struggling to breathe will die from lack of oxygen.  
  
He moves closer to the door, to peek inside and he quickly looks away when he sees who's sitting on her table. It's Tyler. He's hyperventilating and quaking with the nurse and counselor talking to him with soothing voices, talking him down from his anxiety attack.   
  
Josh chances a glance again and watches as Tyler claws at his familiar gray shirt before his fingers are buried in his hair and he bends at the waist to rest his elbows on his knees and he's curling in on himself, he's hiding from the world. He's making himself small, he's trying to disappear.   
  
The two women keep talking to him, they keep saying "you're safe, you're safe" but Josh knows what it's like for people to tell you you're safe but not feel safe. He knows the tell-tale signs of lying from adults.  
  
And usually when they say 'everything is going to be ok' that's the first sign of lying.  
  
"Tyler, honey, everything is going to be ok."  
  
Josh leaves his notebook on the nurses desk with his pen and then leaves.  
  
........................  
  
Josh is the punk boy with brightly colored hair who flirts too much with the straight boys. That is his identifier. He's grown up in a small minded community, and an even smaller minded household. But they've gotten better. He only had to come out twice to his mom.  
  
Once in middle school when she was picking him up from practice. She parked in a McDonald's and cried about her children not being perfect anymore and screamed at Josh about the Bible until he laughed with watery eyes and told her it was an experiment for school, to see what it's like for queer kids. She laughed and rubbed his shoulders until Josh was able to pretend it never happened.  
  
The second time it was on his brothers birthday, a year ago. He did it because his mom was so busy trying to plan everything, he figured she couldn't get upset at him on his brothers birthday.  
  
He was right. But it wasn't because of his birthday. People can change. His mom is proof of that.   
  
"Mom," Josh says, coming home from school after seeing Tyler breakdown.  
  
"Yeah, hun?"  
  
"I have a problem."  
  
"Boy or girl?"  
  
"Boy," he says quickly and his mother nods and sets down the towel she's had in her hands, moving to stand in front of him.  
  
"Was he straight again?" She asks seriously and three years ago, had he said he was having a boy problem like that, she would have cried and thrown the Bible at him. Now she looks worried he's fallen for another straight boy because she's scared he's getting hurt again.  
  
"I don't--I don't know. I don't think he's straight. But...but he's sad."  
  
"Whys he sad?"  
  
"I don't know. It's Tyler, from the Joseph family," Josh explains and moves to sit down.  
  
"Mmmmmm. I heard about them down at the church. We were asked to send prayers to them, to their boy."  
  
"So something happened? So do you know what?"  
  
"We get asked to pray for someone not to gossip about it," she chides and lightly smacks his shoulder playfully before returning to the kitchen. "But he's sad. He needs a friend, I think."  
  
"I think so too," Josh agrees. "But he doesn't like talking to people."  
  
"So talk for him," she says. "Or don't talk at all. Sometimes people just like knowing someone's there. No one wants to be lonely."  
  
...................  
  
Tyler hates being touched, Josh has noticed. It's happened twice now. Once he witnessed it before his eyes, and the next time he's only witnessed the aftermath and the confusion from the boy who was just trying to help him stay upright after they bumped into each other.  
  
Josh thinks back to his mom, how she said sometimes people just don't want to be lonely. He thinks Tyler is lonely. He's got to be.  
  
So he stands, ignoring Brendon and Dallon's strange looks and questions and he follows after him to the bathroom. He waits a minute or two before going in and he sees Tyler at the sink, gripping the white porcelain for dear life.  
  
"I--sometimes it helps to be mean," he says to Tyler's back, his gray shirt wrinkled in some spots. "Like--if you want, you can yell at me and call me names until you feel better," Josh offers. "It's like, I've heard it can help, to have an outlet or something. Like a punching bag. You can punch me if you want."  
  
Tyler glances up at him, stares at him from the mirror before slowly turning around. "I-I don't want to hurt anyone," he says slowly, voice gravelly from inuse.  
  
Josh nods slowly. "Sometimes it's good to get lost, then. Like alone in the woods and stuff. Like if the world gets too loud and crazy, I like to go and get lost. It helps."  
  
"I don't like being alone," he whispers, first couple of sentences in weeks, Josh is impressed with himself. He wants to keep going. He wants Tyler to keep talking.  
  
"We can get lost together," Josh offers.  
  
"No," Tyler says quickly, shutting him down. Josh tries to not let it sting too much. "But-but thank you."  
  
Josh nods slowly. "Do-do you want to be alone?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Do you want me to stay?"  
  
"...No," he says hesitantly.  
  
Josh nods again and walks over to the other side of the bathroom, leaning against the wall. "I won't get near you," he says slowly, "but you don't want to be alone so I won't leave until you tell me to, ok?"  
  
Tyler nods slowly and then turns back around to the mirror. "I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"We don't have to talk at all," Josh explains softly and Tyler cries. He cries and Josh stays in his corner and balls his fists, struggling to stand there and watch as a beautiful boy breaks down and he can't do anything about it.  
  
......................  
  
Josh walks home everyday from school. He's done it for years, unless he had practice and then he would wait until his mom got off of work and then she'd drive him home because walking at night wasn't allowed. But he likes the walks.  
  
He's ten minutes, on foot, from the high school and he's always enjoyed just putting on headphones and letting his head get away from him as he walked home. Sometimes he'd take the long way, if the day was particularly nice and he just got a new album he wanted to listen to. Sometimes his ten minute walks turned into hours. Sometimes he'd stop and get lunch somewhere. Sometimes he'd come home with double vision and desperate for a taste of food.  
  
He's leaning towards double vision and desperation now. He walks quickly towards his house, waiting to cross the street when a car slows down near him before driving off again. He doesn't think much of it, just walks home faster and stuffs his face with left over pasta.  
  
................  
  
Josh finds himself in the bathroom at the wrong time. Or maybe the right time. He'd only gone to go for a quick piss but he's not alone. Tyler's there again and he's crying again. This time when Josh comes in, Tyler doesn't stop. He glances at Josh and then goes back to his own business and Josh stands where he stood before.  
  
"I hear writing it out helps," Josh offers quietly after a couple of minutes. "Do you write? Do you like to write?"  
  
"No," is the quick reply from Tyler. "Yes," is the much softer reply right afterwards.  
  
Josh smiles just a fraction. "I have drums. Drums help. The louder it is the better my head feels because it drowns out whatever bad thing I'm thinking of," he explains.  
  
Tyler sniffles and wipes under his nose. "I--I like music."  
  
"Me too," Josh laughs a bit, he's nervous. "What do you listen to?"  
  
"Silence."  
  
Josh's face falls a bit at that response.  
  
"Somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence," Tyler explains and Josh nods. "But I used to like driving around and listening to music."  
  
"I've never done that. I don't have a car. Or a license."  
  
"Is that why you walk home?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Tyler nods slowly, sniffing again, trying to compose himself again. "It's raining today. Did you walk in the rain?"  
  
Josh nods. He's talking, Tyler is talking to him, keeping conversation. Josh wants to fist pump in the air, a la breakfast club style. But he just nods and smiles. "A little rain never hurts anyone."  
  
Tyler chews on his bottom lip. He chews and chews until it's raw and red and Josh wants to stop him before it bleeds. "If it's raining, do you want a ride home?" He asks softly and Tyler's face turns a deep red after the question.  
  
"Only if you want to," Josh replies quickly.  
  
"My--uh--" he swallows thickly, "my siblings are staying after school today and usually we talk but they won't be there and I--"  
  
Josh gets it. He doesn't want to be alone. Tyler is desperate for company, for sounds to drown out the silence in his car.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. I'd love a ride."  
  
Tyler gives him the ghost of a smile before they both leave the bathroom. Josh has to ask for another pass ten minutes later because he forgot go earlier.  
  
.............  
  
Josh finds Tyler after their last class, walking up to him and giving him enough space. "You sure it's ok?"  
  
"It's raining," is all that Tyler says before he's walking and Josh is following after him.  
  
It is raining and it's raining hard. Josh is actually grateful for this bit of luck. He's glad he doesn't have to walk in this, his shoes would be fucked and he likes his shoes.  
  
Tyler's car is older. It's black and it's pristine. He feels guilty when he steps in and he trails stuff inside on his shoes. "Sorry."  
  
"It's cool."  
  
Josh buckles up and bites his lip. "I, uh, live on North Rose, it's just up the street," he explains.  
  
"Ok."  
  
"It's the house with the red door."  
  
"Ok."  
  
Tyler peels out of the parking lot and drives off in silence, Josh looks down at the empty radio spot. "Was it really stolen?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Where at?"  
  
"Party."  
  
"You party?" Josh asks and turns to smile at him.  
  
"N-n-no," Tyler stutters out and he twitches so Josh drops it. "So music. Music. You like music. What kind of music?"  
  
"Uh. Like. Anything hard, really. Like loud and stuff. Uhm. System of a Down. Uhm. Uhm. Sorry, I'm coming up blank on anything else," he admits and laughs. "What about you?"  
  
"Anything on the radio, usually. I'm not fussy."  
  
"Oh yeah? That...that sucks. Since your radio has--since someone stole it. From your car. I--uh--my house is right there," he says awkwardly and Tyler stops too suddenly and it's awkward. They're awkward. "Do you--uh--do you want to come inside an--  
  
"No."  
  
Josh nods. "Right. Sorry. Uhm. Thanks for the ride."  
  
"It's cool."  
  
"Do-do you wanna get tacos?" Josh asks.  
  
"Yeah. I love tacos."  
  
"Yeah? Me too!" Josh smiles and that's how they end up at Taco Bell, sitting in the parking lot in the car in silence.  
  
Tyler grips his steering wheel and gnaws at his bottom lip again. His knuckles turn white and Josh notices his shirt again. Same gray one from yesterday.  
  
"Are you ok?" Josh asks slowly.  
  
"I--I don't--"  
  
"What do you want? From Taco Bell?" Josh interrupts.  
  
"Doritos tacos. And the cinnamon twists."  
  
"I'll be right back," he says and then he's running out of the car and running inside without Tyler.  
  
When he comes back, Tyler looks over him and Josh smiles and holds up the bag. "I got you five tacos, is that enough?"  
  
Tyler looks over him and he smiles. An actual smile from Tyler Joseph. "It's perfect."  
  
Josh hears his heart shatter into a million pieces because Tyler Joseph just fucking smiled at him and it's beautiful. The day is good, his crops are growing, everything is right with the world.  
  
And his fingers turn orange after one Taco and he watches Tyler lick each digit clean. He feels a tug in his stomach and he has to force himself to look away as he eats his own tacos.  
  
They eat in silence. It's comfortable. This time, at least. There's no forced conversation or awkward small talk and it's good. Josh's eyes glance everywhere, taking in the small details of the car. There's not much, only a white book laying in the backseat.  
  
"Can--can I drop you off next week?" Tyler asks softly, suddenly, ripping Josh's eyes away from the title of the book. "My siblings have stuff every Thursday and--it's cool if you don't want to. I know I'm--I know I'm not like normal and shit. But I just--"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. It's cool," Josh interrupts him and Tyler looks over at him and silently thanks him. "And I think--I think you're cool. Like...normal is boring. Weird is where it's at."  
  
Tyler smiles at him. "Is that why your hairs pink?"  
  
"Yeah," Josh laughs. "What's your favorite color?"  
  
"Yellow."  
  
"Ok."  
  
............  
  
Josh colors his hair bright yellow that night and when Tyler sees it the next day, he smiles wide.  
  
Josh promises himself to do everything he can to keep Tyler Joseph smiling.  
  
................................  
  
"Wanna come back to my house and we can watch a movie or something?" Josh offers next Thursday.  
  
"No," Tyler replies instantly. And then, "yes."  
  
"Ok."  
  
Tyler is awkward inside his house. It's obvious he's uncomfortable and Josh tries his best to settle him by talking and filling the silence. "We can go to the bonus room. It's where my drums are at and the biggest tv is in there," Josh explains, he thinks Tyler will be more comfortable in there instead of in his small room, anyways.  
  
Tyler settles down on the floor, in front of the couch.  
  
"You can eat on the couch."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Or down here," Josh says and sits down in front of him, taking out the tacos again. "Do you have like a million gray shirts?" He asks randomly  
  
Tyler shakes his head. "Just one."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I just wear this one everyday."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"I wash it."  
  
"Oh. Ok. Cool. Is it your favorite shirt?"  
  
"I hate it more than anything ever," Tyler explains and then shuts up when he stuffs the Taco in his mouth and Josh doesn't press for more.  
  
They finish eating and then Josh grabs the trash and sets it to the side before he's moving back to the couch.  
  
"Are we gonna have time to watch anything?" Josh asks. "You have to pick up your siblings, no?"  
  
"No. I--I asked my parents to do that."  
  
Josh smiles and tries to hide it as he sits down on the couch and pats the cushion to invite Tyler up. Tyler sits on the other side completely and doesn't say anything.  
  
"So...uh. Superheroes or horror?"  
  
"I've never seen either."  
  
Josh makes an affronted noise and turns his head to look at him in confusion. "What do you watch?"  
  
"Documentaries, mostly."  
  
"Do you wanna watch a documentary?"  
  
"Not really, no."  
  
"Ok. Ok. Uhm. Best superhero movie. The Dark Knight. We'll start with that one," he concludes and pulls it up through Netflix.  
  
Tyler watches it silently, making no comments or moving. He's so still, it's a little unnerving. His thin leg is crossed over his other leg and Josh watches him as he just sits and blinks at the screen. He looks almost dead.  
  
And then his fingers twitch. A shiver runs down him and his foot jumps. He starts to scratch at his wrist and then he scratches at his head and then his head shakes randomly, as if denying a thought in his brain. Josh watches it all unfold.   
  
"I really wish I was flying through space," Tyler says suddenly. He tenses up afterwards and makes no movement to continue the thought.  
  
It was probably a slip up. A kink in his armor. Josh chips away at the small hole. "Why aren't you?" Josh asks. "You could build a spaceship and just take off," he chuckles.  
  
Tyler nods slowly and then sighs. "I don't want a spaceship. I just want to go away."  
  
"How would you travel or breathe?"  
  
"I'd just float around."  
  
"What about breathing?"  
  
Tyler chuckles a little humorlessly. "To be honest with you, I wouldn't mind not breathing."  
  
"Maybe you'd mutate. Grow some shit and, I don't know. What do aliens need to grow to be able to breathe? Maybe you could grow a peehole on your finger and aim it at the Earth."  
  
Tyler laughs. Actually laughs. "That's not possible."  
  
"What? Come on. You watch documentaries. You've gotta know this shit about mutation."  
  
Tyler laughs again. "No. I don't, actually."  
  
"It's evolution."  
  
"I'm Christian."  
  
"So am I," Josh counters easily.  
  
Tyler bites his lip. "I was raised Christian, I mean. I wasn't--I never got into science. My mom always told me it discredited the Lord."  
  
"They're reading it wrong," Josh says softly. "It actually encourages faith for me."  
  
"It's hard to have faith when bad things happen to good people and bad people always get good things," Tyler snaps.  
  
"No. It's not. Because if only good things happened to good people, would they still be good? You have to have a balance of good and bad, dude. Bad things happen to everyone, same with good. Life isn't about good and bad, it's about balance. It's about living in the middle, not too far one way or the other."  
  
"But what about if something really bad happens?" Tyler asks quietly. "Like--like Batman. The love of his life just died. Like the dude has given up and lost so much just for that to happen to him? How's that balanced?"  
  
"In the next film he gets a love he didn't see coming, he gets peace," Josh explains. "When bad things happen, it's to ground you because something's coming that's about to sweep you off your feet and make you be on cloud nine, you've got to have an anchor to keep you from getting too high though."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Cause if you fly too high, you'll get too close to the sun. You'll burn."  
  
"So? I'll fly on scorched wings."  
  
"And then you'll burn up into ashes, wings and all."  
  
"My ashes will float in the wind, then."  
  
"And be apart of the world forever, but you'll be alone. Because that's what happens when you try to take too much, you get nothing."  
  
Tyler stays still again, worrying at his lip and thinking before speaking again, cautiously this time. "I have nothing now."  
  
"You do. You're just bad at math and can't count your blessings."  
  
"Blessings?" Tyler questions and shakes his head. "I feel cursed."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Tyler doesn't say anything. He doesn't reply. He shifts positions on the couch and switches legs and finishes the movie in silence.  
  
"Thanks for letting my watch a movie with you,"Tyler says softly, standing up slowly.  
  
"Thanks for bringing me home."  
  
He nods in response and turns to walk out to the room when Josh calls for him. "I--uh--I just...Tyler you're not...I want to be your friend," he says. "I'm trying to be your friend and it's ok if you don't talk a lot and it's ok if you don't trust me and won't let me in, but just know that I am here for you. We can get tacos every day and sit in silence if that makes you feel better. Will it make you feel better?"  
  
Tyler's back is to him so he can't see his face, but he can read his body language. He curls in on himself, he stiffens up and his body shakes a bit and Josh knows this is a tell tale sign of him getting overwhelmed. Of him not knowing how to process this.  
  
"Yes," Tyler whispers and Josh smiles softly at him.  
  
"Ok."  
  
"Ok."  
  
....................  
  
"There you are," Josh chuckles as he climbs up the metal bleachers outside the next day. It's cold and it rained yesterday so they're a bit damp but Tyler doesn't seem to mind. He sits at the top, like a lonely king of metal.  
  
He doesn't reply, just turns to look at Josh and closes his notebook.  
  
"Hey. My mom made you something. She saw you leaving our house and she was like 'take this to your new friend'," Josh explains as he straddles the bleacher and sits in front of Tyler.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"It's a brownie. It's cinnamon something. I don't know," Josh admits and takes off the book bag and puts it between them and digs out the little plastic container with the brownie in it. He offers it out to Tyler who eyes it wearily. Josh nods and then sets it down and slides it over to Tyler, retracting his hand so Tyler can touch the lid gently before peeling it off slowly. He gingerly takes out a piece and nibbles on it.  
  
"It's good," he clarifies and takes a bigger piece out to munch on. "Want some?"  
  
"Oh no. No. Mom made like a shit ton and there's a whole rack of them waiting for me at home. These are specially packed for you."  
  
"Thanks," he replies and grabs the container and moves to shove it in his own bag. "I'll bring that back tomorrow."  
  
"Cool. So..uh. Why're you out here?"  
  
"There's nowhere to sit in the lunchroom."  
  
What he means is is that there's nowhere to sit alone.  
  
"It's cold out here."  
  
"My car radio was stolen."  
  
And Tyler hates silence, Josh finishes in his head. "Come on. Let's go to your car before we freeze," he chuckles. "I'll sing to you if I have to."  
  
And that's how they end up in Tyler's car again, warming up with the heater on blast and eating their lunch in relative silence. "Do you ever think about running away?" Josh asks randomly, staring out into the parking lot.  
  
"Everyday."  
  
"Why haven't you?"  
  
"Because there's no place far enough that I can run that my demons wouldn't follow," he says slowly. "What about you?"  
  
"Because you haven't."  
  
.........................  
  
"Uhm...do you want to come to my house?" Tyler asks in the car as he pulls up to Taco Bell the next week, nervously pulling on his hangnails, pulling them right off until he bleeds.  
  
"Yeah. Sure. That sounds good. The usual?" Josh asks.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
And Josh leaves and returns with their Taco Bell order so Tyler can drive them back to his house. Josh smiles a bit as they drive back, watching Tyler nervously drive. He bites his lips, his nails, his cheek until they pull into an unfamiliar driveway and Josh assumes this is his home.  
  
There's a big welcome mat at the front door and it's eerily quiet and dark inside. "My-uh--my parents will be home in a few hours," Tyler says quietly.  
  
"Ok."  
  
He leads them up the stairs and to a door in the furthest corner. It has Tyler's name on the outside with a black nameplate and a cross next to it. Josh suddenly gets nervous, he can feel the hammering of his heart against his chest and Tyler opens the door and closes it behind Josh and Josh has time to take it all in.  
  
Tyler's room is dark but its pristine. The room is immaculate with everything in order and it smells like a hospital with all of the cleaner products. It doesn't feel lived in, he realizes.  
  
"Oh my god. I'm so happy you haven't seen my room yet, I feel unworthy now," he jokes. "It's so clean."  
  
"I--uh--wash everything pretty much every day," Tyler explains quietly and the other boy doesn't know what to say to that. "You can sit wherever you want. It's ok," Tyler says gently so he chooses the bed. He's very careful with his Tacos, careful about the crumbs.  
  
"My moms lucky if I remember to wash my stuff once in a while. Is that gross?" Josh asks and Tyler looks at him for a second and then shakes his head. "What if they made a cool ranch dorito taco?"  
  
"The world would end."  
  
Josh grins at that and nods. "Probably. It would be too much for us puny mortals to take in."  
  
"Definitely. Do you wanna play a video game?"  
  
"Yeah. Sure. Whatcha got?"  
  
"Zelda. On the wii."  
  
"Isn't--isn't that one player?"  
  
"Yeah but like. Like I could be the sword and you could move him or vice versa."  
  
"I wanna be the sword."  
  
"Ok."  
  
And Josh is the sword while Tyler runs around, getting annoyed when Josh decides to randomly cut up every piece of grass to get more rupees.  
  
There's times during the game where Tyler gets frustrated by Josh's lack of understanding of the rules, but it ends with him laughing, hiding his face in his pillow as he laughs and laughs and Josh just stares in awe at the sound.  
  
"You're awful at this game," he laughs into the pillow, pulling away and chuckling into his hand a few more times.  
  
"Well you didn't give me a chance."  
  
"We've played for two hours!"  
  
"It takes me two hours and 45 seconds before I really get into it," Josh laughs. "We were so close."  
  
"Do you wanna keep playing?"  
  
"Do you play guitar?" Josh asks, his eyes having caught the guitar in the corner.  
  
"Kind of."  
  
"You should show me."  
  
"I'm shy."  
  
"I'll play too."  
  
"I do have a second guitar. And a violin."  
  
"Vioguitar."  
  
Tyler makes a face at the weird word. "What's that?"  
  
"It's a violin guitar. It's where you play the guitar as a violin. It's beautiful. I can play it for you and you play real guitar. It'll be perfect. We'll be a band. The Zelda...the zeldas of legends."  
  
"Wow. What an original name."  
  
"It just came to me. Don't know where the inspiration came from," Josh jokes back easily.  
  
He feels giddy, he feels almost high from this, from Tyler being easy going with him. Josh never thought he'd be here. In Tyler's room. With Tyler laughing. It's addicting, he's already desperate for another fix of it.  
  
So Tyler pulls out the guitars and the giant bow for the violin and hands it over to Josh. He gets exactly two seconds in before there's loud laughter from Josh's right side and he turns and smiles when he sees Tyler having a fit.  
  
Josh doesn't get to hear Tyler play, but he gets to hear him laugh until he's wheezing and there's tears coming from his eyes and Josh thinks enough for him. More than enough.  
  
......................  
  
Josh dreams of loud laughter and soft hands. He dreams of lips pressed against his hands searching for his own.  
  
He wakes up to a loud buzzing though. Insistent, continuous buzzing that has him groggily rubbing his eyes and reach for the phone that's plugged up to the wall. He accidentally rips the chord out and he curses before he answers.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hello," the voice replies and josh frowns and glances down at the caller id.  
  
"Tyler?"  
  
"Yeah. Uhm. What're you doing right now?"  
  
"I was sleeping."  
  
"Oh. Sorry. I can..I can come back later."  
  
Josh sits up now. "What?"  
  
"I'm outside."  
  
"Do you want to come inside?"  
  
"Is that ok?" Tyler asks softly, there's something different about his voice, it sounds strained and too controlled.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. Uhm. I'll be down to let you in. You just have to be extra quiet, my moms sleeping."  
  
"Ok."  
  
They hang up and Josh stands up and puts on some basketball shorts before he's walking out of his room and heading down the stairs, bare feet padding on the cold wood. He thinks he might still be dreaming.  
  
But when he opens the door and sees Tyler's face he knows he's not, he would never dream of Tyler looking like this. His eyes are bloodshot and his hood is up and he looks fucking wrecked. Josh wants to grab him, wrap him up in his arms and protect him from anything and everything. He wants to make sure nothing ever hurts Tyler Joseph again.  
  
He doesn't say anything, just steps aside and let's Tyler in and then leads the way up the stairs, extra quiet on the turn out from the top step so his mom doesn't wake. Tyler does the same and they slip into his room. Tyler stands in front of the door after they close it and just stares ahead.  
  
"You--uh--you can make yourself comfortable. I just--sorry, it's messy, I wasn't expecting company," Josh says and bends down to quickly pick up some of his clothes.  
  
"It smells like you," Tyler whispers.  
  
"Do--do I smell bad?"  
  
"No. It just--it doesn't smell like detergent and cleaning products. It smells like you," he repeats and Josh thinks it's a good think. He hopes.  
  
Josh smiles softly at that and watches as Tyler moves to sit on the bed, slowly taking off his jacket and he's wearing that damn shirt again.  
  
"You ok?"  
  
"Yeah," Tyler answers quickly and then shakes his head. "No. No. I'm not ok," he admits and puts his hands over his face and his elbows on his knees. "I'm not ok."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"I--I can't," Tyler says and his voice breaks, his shoulders shake and Josh knows he's crying and josh has that overwhelming feeling to touch him again.  
  
He moves to sit next to Tyler and watches as Tyler flinches away. "Please, please, please don't touch me."  
  
"I'm not," Josh says and looks over him. "I won't. I promise I won't."  
  
"Ok. Ok," he whispers back. "I just want to be normal."  
  
"Normal is overrated."  
  
"Normal means you could touch me. You could pat my back or something. It means I could sleep without fucking nightmares or sleep paralysis. It means I could eat without feeling sick," Tyler rants.  
  
"Normal means brown hair," Josh says softly. "It means the end of Zelda of legends and yellow hair, the end of vioguitars and two player legend of Zelda. What's normal to you isn't normal to everyone else but that doesn't make you...that doesn't make you unworthy or whatever."  
  
Tyler slides his hands down past his eyes, down to his mouth. "I feel...I feel dirty," he says quietly, staring out into the dark. "No matter how much I wash my clothes or my bed stuff, no matter how many times I shower and scrub my skin until it's raw, I never feel fucking clean. This shirt feels dirty, it suffocates me."  
  
"Then take it off."  
  
"I can't. I can't."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because..because I'm dirty. I'm unclean. And everything my skin touches gets dirty," he says softly. "And this shirt is dirty too. It's filthy."  
  
Josh doesn't understand. He doesn't understand. He doesn't pretend to, he doesn't know. So he sits there and just looks at Tyler. "What can I do?"  
  
"I--can I stay here?" Tyler asks softly, looking down at his pants to avoid Josh's eyes.  
  
"Yeah. You can take the bed. I'll sleep on the floor," he says and stands up to put blankets down but Tyler shakes his head.  
  
"Can-can you sleep next to me?"  
  
"And not touch you?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Yeah," Josh agrees. He'd agree to anything if that made Tyler feel safe and better.  
  
They shift around then, Tyler takes off his shoes and keeps his socks and pants and shirt on while Josh strips down to practically nothing. "Is this ok?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
So Josh slips under the covers first and Tyler gets on top. "Do you want me to play music?" Josh asks quietly. "I can play something soft or like noises and stuff. I have an app."  
  
"No. No. It's ok," he says softly and Josh nods.  
  
Tyler hates silence. But he listens to the steady rhythm of Josh's breathing, in and out, in and out, and the soft thumping of his heart. It's so fast. So so fast but so alive and so ok and Tyler sleeps for the first time in weeks and he doesn't wake up screaming or afraid, he wakes up with two big brown eyes staring into his and a wide smile. Tyler's heart beats fast but he forgets how to breathe.  
  
.............  
  
It happens again that night. Tyler wakes Josh up on the middle of the night, he asks to stay. He asks for help. And Josh lets him stay, he lets him cry.  
  
Tyler sleeps in Josh's bed for a straight week until Tyler tells him he's ok now. He's fine. But the next morning, Tyler's eye bags are back and Tyler swears he's fine.  
  
So Josh calls him in the middle of the night.  
  
"Josh?"  
  
"Hey. What're you doing right now?" He asks and Tyler cracks a smile, looks at the time.  
  
"I'm pretending to be asleep," he admits.  
  
"We'll stop pretending. I'm outside."  
  
Tyler smiles. He can't help it. He closes his notebook and hangs up, quietly leaving his room and walking down the stairs and seeing Josh standing on his front lawn in his hoodie and beanie.  
  
"Coming in?"  
  
"No. You're coming out," Josh says and Tyler snorts. "Come on. Shoes and hoodie. Maybe a hat, it's cold."  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"I'm taking you somewhere where you can breathe," he says simply and Tyler is afraid, he's terrified, but he grabs his shoes and hoodie and follows Josh instead of his head.    
  
They don't drive. They walk in silence. Tyler's still afraid. His hands shake and his heart races but he trusts Josh. He does. They've slept next to each other a handful of times. Josh is a good guy.  
  
He keeps repeating that as they head to the school, walking past the soccer field and into the woods behind it and Tyler struggles to keep his breathing ok. He struggles to keep walking but he pushes through and he watches where Josh steps so he doesn't trip over tree limbs. He watches so he doesn't lose sight of Josh. He watches until they stop and they're in a dense part of the forest and Tyler just stares at the yellow haired boy before him.  
  
"Why're we here?"  
  
"So you can breathe," Josh repeats. "Trees give out oxygen," he explains. "You said you felt like you were suffocating and you can't take off the shirt, so I'm bringing you to where there's plenty of oxygen and we're outside and it's dirty and it's ok to feel dirty."  
  
Tyler clenches his jaw tightly.  
  
"It's ok to feel dirty even not out here. It's ok because you're not dirty Tyler. You're not. And you're stronger than you think you are. Showing pain isn't weakness. It's being strong. You're strong."  
  
"Josh?" Tyler croaks out but Josh doesn't stop.  
  
"And if you need to sleep next to me every night until we're graduated and in college or even then too, that's fine. It's all fine. Whatever you need from me, Ty. I will give it to you. I want to know you, I want to see, Tyler. Now breathe."  
  
Tyler screams. He screams and screams and holds his head and sinks down into the cold, dirty earth and keeps screaming. His fingers sink into the dirt around him and he stays screaming until there's nothing left in him. Until he realizes he's just silently crying and Josh is kneeled down in front of him. He's still there.  
  
"Hello," Josh whispers when Tyler meets his eyes.  
  
"Hello," he replies softly. "Hello."  
  
..............  
  
Josh gets under Tyler's covers, smelling the strong scent of detergent. Tyler gets under the covers too, in his gray shirt and basketball shorts. Their fingers are bone white from the cold and Josh wants to rub the cold from Tyler's bones.  
  
They stay on their sides, staring at each other. It's so intimate. Josh has slept with plenty of people before, he's sunk his body into them and they've buried themselves into him. He's seen people naked and used his mouth to make them scream his name but this moment right now feels more intimate than any of those. He feels vulnerable. Way more vulnerable laying in bed completely clothed with Tyler than he ever has before.  
  
"Why aren't you like the others?" Tyler asks quietly, careful to break this dull peace they have.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You don't--you don't keep asking me what's wrong. You don't ask me why I went missing and where I was for those few weeks. You don't ask me why I don't like touching people. You don't ask, you don't pry. You accept what I am and let it go," he replies.  
  
"Because I can't force you to let me in," Josh says simply. "If one day you decide to let me in, you will. But you don't owe me an explanation, you don't owe me anything."  
  
Tyler nods and then closes his eyes. Josh thinks the conversation is over but Tyler surprises him. He always does. "Someone hurt me."  
  
Josh can feel his heart in his throat, it blocks his words and pulses so hard he can't swallow around it. He's scared if he opens his mouth he'll vomit out the still beating organ onto Tyler's pristine sheets. But Tyler breaks the silence first.  
  
"He hurt me. He used his teeth to bite through my skin, to peel off my flesh and to chew it up and he ate it so it would be easier to crawl inside of me and to tear my insides. He crawled inside of me and tore out my innards and then stepped outside of my skin, using my bones as stairs to get out. He broke those bones and left me an empty vessel. He stole something from me. He stole me.  
  
I didn't know his teeth were poisoned. I didn't know his mouth was a liar. I didn't know his semen could brand me as dirty and I didn't know I could never wash him all the way out. I tried to cleanse him out of me. I tried to drown him out with water, with God's water. But not even God could get him out of me. He won't get out.  
  
I see him everywhere. I still feel him. I feel him and when people touch me I'm scared they'll feel him too."  
  
Josh throws up his heart and he cries into Tyler's pillows.  
  
....................  
  
Josh wakes up alone. He sits up and looks around the lonely room and he feels sick to his stomach again. His thoughts are interrupted when Tyler walks into the room again, wearing a hoodie.  
  
"Sorry. I was putting my laundry in the washer," Tyler explains softly and moves to get into bed again. "I'm washing my shirt."  
  
"Why do you only wear that shirt?" Josh asks as he lays back down.  
  
"Because that's the shirt that-that--"  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I want it to rot. I want it to fall apart one day. I want to be free of it," Tyler explains.  
  
Josh swallows back bile again and he'd say his heart was pounding but it's not. He threw it up the night before and now there's a big hole inside of him but it's not empty. Tyler Joseph crawled inside his mouth last night and made a home of his empty chest cavity. And he hopes Tyler stays there. Tyler is safe in him. Tyler's safe.  
  
"It's Saturday," Josh replies with instead.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We should get slushies."  
  
"But it's cold."  
  
"Who says we're getting out of the car?"  
  
Tyler smiles widely and nods. They have to wait until Tyler's shirt is completely washed and dried, separate from the rest of his laundry, until they can leave.  
  
"What's your favorite color?" Tyler asks him when he changes into the gray shirt and goes to his dresser.  
  
"Red."  
  
"Ok." Tyler pulls out a pair of bright red socks to wear with his black sweats and black shoes and Josh smiles.  
  
......................  
  
Tyler feels safe with josh. He feels warm and he feels protected and unjudged. He curls deep into the covers of Josh's bed, they're at his place now. They switch it up every couple of days. Now it's back to Josh's and Tyler likes it here. Likes he can smell Josh.  
  
He likes it when Josh plays music, something loud and screaming and heavy with drums. The music vibrates on his skin, it wraps around him and when he sings along, he can pretend the vibrations he feels on his lips are just Josh's lips pressing to his.  
  
But it's those same thoughts that have him scratching at old cuts in his arms, that have him itching and itching until his nails break through the fragile skin and he has to walk to the bathroom and hide. He wants to be normal. He wants to hug Josh. He wants to kiss him.  
  
He lets the last one slip accidentally to Josh.  
  
"You can," is all that Josh replies. "If you want to."  
  
"I want to," Tyler says but doesn't move. "I can't."  
  
"That's ok," Josh replies. "I can kiss you without touching your mouth."  
  
So Josh plays a song for him, tells him it is for him. He lays in bed next to Tyler and sings the lyrics to him and Tyler blushes as he listens to the words.  
  
"If I could tear you from the ceiling, I know the best have tried. I'd fill your breath with every meaning and find a place we both could hide," Josh sings along and Tyler blushes. He blushes because it's their first kiss and Josh didn't even have to touch him so he could feel him, they didn't have to touch and Tyler can feel his lips vibrating.  
  
...................  
  
"Is Tyler coming over?" Josh's mom asks and Josh shakes his head.  
  
"No. It's my turn to go over there," he says. He doesn't lie to his mom. Sometimes omits the truth.  
  
"Ok. Be safe. Use protection."  
  
"It's not like that," he says and shakes his head.  
  
"What's it like?"  
  
"It's more than that."  
  
"Ok. Invite him for dinner. I want to meet your boyfriend."  
  
"Ok."  
  
His mom smiles a bit. "His mom talks to me at church, sometimes. She tells himself he's been doing better. She says he sleeps through the night and he talks more to them now."  
  
Josh smiles. "Good."  
  
"You're a good kid, Josh. You're a good kid. But remember you don't have to save people. You don't have to lose yourself to save someone."  
  
"I'm not losing myself," Josh argues and shakes his head. "I'm finding myself, mom. I'm helping Tyler get back something someone stole."  
  
.............  
  
"My mom wants to meet you," Josh tells him when they're at school, hiding in his car during lunch.  
  
"My mom wants to meet you too," Tyler says and chuckles, shoving some food into his mouth.  
  
"She called you my boyfriend," Josh says and looks at Tyler, watches his face for his reaction.  
  
"We can't tell my mom that," Tyler says and Josh nods and looks down. "She won't let you sleep over with the door closed anymore if she does."  
  
Josh smiles. "That's ok. Mine will."  
  
"Maybe I can guilt trip my mom into letting you even after they find out you're my boyfriend," Tyler chuckles and Josh shakes his head.  
  
"You're awful."  
  
"I know. But you like it."  
  
"I do."  
  
Tyler does guilt trip his mom. Even cries. Josh struggles to not laugh behind his hand but Tyler's mom smiles at him and he feels so happy. So so happy.  
  
That first night sleeping together in bed with the official title, Josh can't sleep at all. He watches Tyler and he can't help but feel his chest constrict with all that he feels. He's happy. He's happy and he thinks Tyler is happy too.  
  
..................  
  
Tyler is happy. He smiles and goes to class and talks sometimes. He's happy.  
  
Josh even gets him to start sitting with his friends at lunch and Tyler feels good. He feels ok.  
  
"Dude. You have a hole in your shirt," Brendon points out one day and Tyler smiles.  
  
"Good," he says and grins at Josh from beside him.  
  
"You guys are gross. Stop giving each other heart eyes. Go blow him in the bathroom or something," he says and Tyler's smile falls.  
  
"Dude. Don't be like that," Josh chastises and Brendon groans.  
  
"Sorry. Sorry. I'm just a little jealous. I was your number one first," he jokes and Josh laughs but Tyler doesn't. He doesn't.  
  
...................  
  
"Can I hear you play drums?" Tyler asks Josh one day when they're at his house, hidden away in Josh's room an eating snacks on his bed and making an absolute mess.  
  
"Yeah sure," he says and stands up, motioning for Tyler to follow him.  
  
So he does, going into the bonus room and Josh grabs the tarp on the drum set and yanks it off. He grabs sticks from the side of the drum set and kicks the little stand back some so he can sit and then scoots closer to his set and starts slowly with some bass drums. He keeps the hits light with his foot before he starts to play the symbol, diddling on them so the sound stays continuous and continues to crash and come in a wave.  
  
He hits the snare, leaving the symbol in order to actually play a song and Tyler is left in awe at how it sounds. He feels the beats on his chest, feels them vibrate and rattle his rib cage and he closes his eyes and just listens.  
  
Josh is amazing. He's perfect. He plays drums with his heart, bares his soul with his instrument and Tyler prays to God, prays for the strength to touch. He hasn't prayed in so long but he does now and when Josh is finished, Tyler is crying.  
  
God never comes through for Tyler but Josh does. He always does. And that's enough even if he can't touch. It's enough.  
  
And that night when they're laying in bed, smiling at each other and laughing, Josh sighs and Tyler has to ask what's on his mind.  
  
"Would...do you still think about running away?" He asks Tyler.  
  
"Yeah," he admits.  
  
"What's stopping you?"  
  
"You're still here."  
  
It's enough. It's enough.  
  
................  
  
"Josh is sick," Tyler complains to Brendon at the lunch table.  
  
"You might've sucked his soul out of his dick," Brendon jokes and then he freezes. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I keep forgetting. I'm insensitive. I'm so sorry. It's just--it's just you two are so different than his last few relationships and foot meet mouth."  
  
"No. No. You're fine," Tyler says and brushes it off. "How was he in other relationships?" Tyler asks. He has to know. It won't change anything, he's just curious.  
  
"I don't--I'm not--he's...he's touchy," Brendon says slowly, cautiously. "He's super into body worshipping and it's a thing for him. The constant touching and stuff, like I know it's not your thing but it is a thing for him and he's got to be fucking starved of it."  
  
Tyler nods. It won't change anything. His fist clenches under the table.  
  
"But he cares about you, Ty. I've never seen him happier than when he's with you. He's so different with you. It's ok that you don't like touching because it doesn't matter to him anymore, ok? He'll be fine. No one's died of lack of stimulation."  
  
Nothing is going to change. "Ok."  
  
Tyler goes home early and slips up into his room. He grabs his iPad and calls up Josh on FaceTime, patiently waiting for it to connect. He's met with pouty, full lips and sad eyes.  
  
"I'm still being quarantined," are his first words to Tyler and Tyler smiles wide.  
  
"We have to contain the infection. We'll still working on the cure out here, the zombies are getting bad. We have hope you the virus mutates in you and you grow an extra arm or something," Tyler jokes back.  
  
"Ugh. Zombie viruses suck," Josh plays along. "My head still hurts but I can breathe again."  
  
"You really do get over colds fast."  
  
"I'm telling you, it's literally twenty four hours of Hell and then I'm fine. Weirdest thing ever. I think it's the red bull."  
  
Tyler can't stop himself from laughing out loudly to that. "It's definitely the Red Bull."  
  
"But the Red Bull won't make the headache go away and my mom isn't here to rub my head," he whines and Tyler bites his lip.  
  
"Want me to rub it?" He asks softly  
  
Josh sits up a bit in bed and looks away. "Uhm. I mean. If you wanted to."  
  
"No. Do you want me to?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"I know," Josh replies and his voice is so...disappointed.  
  
Josh is touch starved while Tyler is drowning. There's guilt in the pit of his stomach, it settles right next to the disgust that doesn't allow him to touch skin. He hates this.  
  
"I can't touch you."  
  
"I know, Ty. I wasn't asking you to, babe," he says gently and Tyler grips his phone tighter.  
  
"But you want me to touch you."  
  
"It's not a big deal."  
  
"But it is. It is. Because relationships are give and take and I just take, take, take but I can't give. I can't give anything. He--  
  
"Tyler Joseph," Josh interrupts. "I told you, I don't need to touch your skin to feel you. I don't need it. I want you and all that you can give me. It's enough. It's more than enough."  
  
Tyler shakes his head. "It's not enough."  
  
"Tyler, what the hell? I don't want you just to touch you and shit, I just want you. I want you for your heart."  
  
"I can't give you that either, Josh."  
  
There's more arguing. More tears. But Tyler hangs up and hides in his bathroom all night until he has to shower and go to school. He feels wrecked. He feels out of it.  
  
He feels what it was like before Josh came into his life but he can't keep taking. He can't keep taking what he doesn't deserve.  
  
......................  
  
Josh sits in English, in his chair across from Tyler and he tries his hardest to stay composed. He succeeds for the most part but he's quiet and unlike himself.  
  
Usually he and Tyler would've started talking already, talking in hushed tones until the teacher silenced them with a death glare. They would've turned to their phones then, quick texts that they sneak in and lingering glances as they count down the minutes until they can talk again.  
  
Now Tyler sits there without talking, not moving. His eyes are glazed over and Josh feels sick to his stomach. His chest feels empty. He feels cold.  
  
"I hope everyone has their free verse poems ready," Ms Lopez announces, smiling at her students. "Josh? Wanna start us off?"  
  
"I don't have mine," he says quickly, shaking his head and hiding in his arms.  
  
She doesn't say anything, just passes by to the next person until she gets to Tyler. And Tyler can't afford a missing grade. He can't.  
  
"Tyler? Do you have your poem?"  
  
"Uh. Uh," he panics and he looks down at his hands, his shaking hands as he panics. He doesn't. He broke it off with Josh. He was supposed to write but he didn't have inspiration.  
  
"Tyler?"  
  
"I-yeah," he says softly and stands up, grabbing his notebook and turning to a blank page as he gets up to the front.  
  
"Title of your poem, honey?"  
  
Tyler bites his lip and fiddles with the blank page. His heart is racing. "Big hands," he says and everyone chuckles around him.  
  
"Okay," his teacher says hesitantly. "Whenever you're ready."  
  
He nods and he blinks a few times. Big hands. Big hands. Hurt hands. Hurt Josh. Confused Josh.  
  
"When God created me, he laughed," Tyler starts. "He said to me, with a twinkle in his eye and a crooked smirk twisting his lips, he said "I give you a gift: I give you the biggest heart I can create", then he laughed, and I laughed too.'  
  
"He sent me to earth, to the ground to be one with all of his other creations with other gifts.  
They had the thickest skins, biggest brains, fastest legs, prettiest eyes.  
I had the biggest heart.  
And it took me years to realize why he laughed.  
I have the biggest heart,  
But no way of protecting it.  
I have the biggest heart that was made to be broken.'  
  
"And then he created you.  
He gave you the gentlest hands, meant to handle gentle things.  
He created you for me,  
For your gentle hands to handle my too big of heart.'  
  
"But he's got a cruel sense of humor,  
The kind that makes two people meant for each other but sends them at the wrong time.  
The kind that allows us to meet,  
But your hands are bruised and hurt  
And my heart is broken.  
And the shards that make up this broken heart hurt your hands even more,  
They cut you up and leave you bleeding.  
The kind of humor that sets two people up completely for each other,  
But he laughs because the universe made it so we wouldn't fit together like we were supposed to.'  
  
'He created oceans and skies, the same shades of blue sometimes and needing one another, but never able to touch.  
And then he stuck a volcano at the bottom of the ocean and let's it erupt,  
The warmth ripping through what the oceans meant to be.  
He stuck monsters down in the bottom, way below volcanoes and caverns.  
Then he made clouds, for the sky, so white and big, so majestic that children can sit there for hours and watch them move and transform into little shapes and animals,  
And then those shapes turn dark and it gives it the power to heat up and strike down in lightening storms in fits of anger.'  
  
'That's what we are.  
You are the sky, so light and beautiful, warming me up on the hottest of days and turning me scary when you turn angry.  
And I--well I am the sea, so beautiful on the outside, but deep down I have a burning rage and monsters you could never dream of.  
  
'We are made for each other but not meant to be.  
And that is how God laughs, lonely from the highest of places, and just as lonely as the rest of us.  
We were created for him, to make him less lonely, but we made him the loneliest of all. And that is how he laughs, by making us feel what he feels. By giving us things that don't mean anything at all,  
Cause all his creations do is ruin everything we touch.  
Maybe that is why we keeps us apart," he finishes, looking down at his feet.  
  
He feels exposed and unprotected.  
  
"Tyler, see me afterwards, ok? That was beautiful," Ms. Lopez says softly and Tyler nods and Goes to sit down.  
  
He hasn't free versed off the top of his head in ages. His heart is still beating like mad when the bell finally rings and the last person goes up. He stands up and Josh is there, waiting.  
  
"Can you take me home?" He asks quietly and Tyler nods silently.  
  
He leaves Tyler behind to talk to the teacher. She's sitting in her chair behind her desk and she motions for Tyler to pull up a chair.  
  
"Is something wrong?" Tyler asks softly.  
  
"No," she says and smiles. "That poem was gorgeous," she laughs. "Literally, in all my years of teaching and I--there's this poetry thing the school is doing. I want you to perform for it," she says.  
  
"Perform?"  
  
"Write a spoken word, Tyler. Something that means something to you. Something that reveals a little bit about you and you'll get to perform it to people who give a shit and will listen to what you have to say. What do you say?"  
  
"I'll--I'll think about it," he says and stands up.  
  
"That's fine. Submissions end in four weeks so make up your mind before then."  
  
He nods and leaves the classroom. He feels his stomach turn unpleasantly and he goes to his next class, he finishes the day and goes to his car and waits for Josh to join him.  
  
The ride home is silent. Josh doesn't say a word to him and Tyler can't say anything, he put his heart out there already. He's scared.  
  
His car rolls to a stop in front of the familiar house and Tyler might cry. He's terrified. What if this is the last time he pulls up to Josh's house? What if this is the last time they share a space together? What if Josh realized this wasn't enough?  
  
He's panicking when he hears him unbuckle his seatbelt and Tyler might cry. He is going to cry. He fucks everything up. It's all his fault. This is his fault. It's his fault. He's broken. He--  
  
"Can you come inside?" Josh asks softly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Tyler will do anything. Anything. He'll even try touching. He's desperate.  
  
He follows Josh inside and he turns to go to his room but Josh goes into the bonus room so Tyler follows. He follows into the brightly lit room.  
  
"I'm--Tyler I'm going to touch you."  
  
"Ok," he says and closes his eyes tightly.  
  
"Trust me?"  
  
"I do," he says and his voice breaks and his skin crawls and prepares for what's about to happen.  
  
His skin buzzes and crawls and itches and he feels dirty again. He feels used. He feels gross and his eyes water behind his eyelids. He feels them leaking and he's about to tell Josh he can't. He can't do this when he hears the drums.  
  
It's soft at first and then it gets louder and it sounds like a heartbeat and Tyler opens his eyes and looks at Josh.  
  
"This isn't a drum. This is my heart," Josh explains. "I don't have to touch you with my hands, you don't have to feel me with skin, Tyler."  
  
Tyler feels it. He feels the pulsing against his chest and he smiles.  
  
"Recite your poem."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Trust me?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Recite it."  
  
"I don't remember it," Tyler admits.  
  
"That's ok. Recite a new one."  
  
Tyler listens to the beat, he feels the connection, feels the buzzing on his skin again but it doesn't want to make him crawl out of his skin and leave. It makes him stay rooted to the ground, his limbs turning into roots and growing and digging through the floorboards and down past the foundation and into the earth below Josh's house.  
  
He feels Josh surrounding him, he feels the weight of his gray shirt on him. It's got holes now. It shows more of his skin. The holes let him breathe, they allow him to feel more of this moment and Tyler's terrified but he goes for it.  
  
"I'm taking over my body,  
Back in control, no more shotty,  
I bet a lot of me was lost,  
Ts uncrossed and Is undotted,  
I fought it a lot  
And it seems a lot like flesh is all I got,  
Not anymore, flesh out the door,  
Fuck!  
  
I must've forgot, you can't trust me,  
I'm open a moment and close when you show it,  
Before you know it, I'm lost at sea,  
And now that I write and think about it,  
And the story unfolds,  
You should take my life,  
You should take my soul," he recites from his head.  
  
"I'm changing the tempo!" Josh shouts over the drums and Tyler listens as it slows down.  
  
"You are surrounding all my surroundings,  
Sounding down the mountain range of my left-side brain,  
You are surrounding all my surroundings,  
Twisting the kaleidoscope behind both of my eyes," he says and smiles when he watches lights dance off the metal parts of Josh's drum where the sun hits it perfectly.  
  
It's perfect.  
  
"And I'll be holding on to you," Tyler shouts. He shouts it over and over again and Tyler feels naked.  
  
But he's not alone. Josh is just as exposed, he's just as raw and bare.  
  
Tyler's words wrap around Josh's arms, they caress his skin. Josh's beats fill Tyler up, up, up with emotion, with feelings he couldn't imagine having. It's not the drums that he feels. It's their heart, it's their hearts that make the beat.  
  
That's how they make love for the first time, hearts beating close and their souls bare and naked. Tyler's voice is raw from screaming and Josh's hands won't stop shaking and he's smiling. He's smiling and Tyler is too.  
  
You don't need sex to make love, Tyler realizes. You don't need sex to make love. You make love however you please. You make it from whatever you have and whatever you can. It's about becoming one and this is how they do it. They do it with music.   
  
...........  
  
Tyler's still breathless and Josh is tired by the time they tumble into his bed. They're both giddy and smiley and Tyler wants to touch so badly but he can't. So he settles for this.  
  
"Is this enough?" Tyler asks softly, staring into dark brown eyes.  
  
"Yes," he replies without hesitation and Tyler believes him. He believes him.  
  
............  
  
That's their first song they ever write together. They call it 'Heartbeat' and it's got one verse and one chorus. It's exactly one minute long and Tyler's so proud of it. So proud.  
  
"We should make another one," Josh offers and Tyler's excited and he nods, opening up his notebook to find more inspiration from his other writings.  
  
Heartbeat is the only song they ever finished in one go, the others they spend weeks on. They fight about rhythms, they fight about lyrics, they fight when Josh is too tired to keep up. They fight when Tyler's too tongue tied to keep up.  
  
They fight, fight, fight but it feels so right to Tyler. They feel so normal. It feels so good. It's addicting. How they make love, it's addicting. It's passionate and their creations are their proof of it.  
  
It's halfway through Christmas break when Tyler and Josh finish four songs total and they call it their first EP. They don't have a band name. They don't have an album title. They just have four songs that they're so, so proud of.  
  
Their album cover is a picture of Tyler's car that Brendon took and he's the one that designs their whole cover art stuff. He's the one that gets their CD case and labeled.  
  
"Was it fun?" Brendon asks as he listens to their CD in Josh's bonus room.  
  
Tyler blushes and Josh nods. "Best thing I've ever experienced," he says.  
  
"Cool. It's good. I like it. I didn't know you could rap, Tyler."  
  
"It's not rap. It's...it's just like really fast words," he argues.

"Whatever it is,it's good. I'm glad you had fun."  
  
"Josh remembers a different album. There was no fun intended to be had during the making of this album. Josh. You're out of the band," Tyler laughs.  
  
"No Dun intended," Josh replies, laughing at his own joke.  
  
"Your nameless band."  
  
"It'll come to us," Josh chuckles.  
  
It does come to them. It comes to them in the form of English homework and reading some play about a man who ruins people's lives by lying. It's about a moral dilemma and the killing of twenty one pilots.  
  
Josh loves the name. Tyler thinks it's ok. He runs it by Brendon via text and he doesn't reply. Instead, he gets the first hard copy of their CD the next day with the name in bold, white letters and the album titled 'No Phun Intended'.  
  
Tyler loves it. Josh loves Tyler.  
  
......................  
  
"How did you manage to sneak away from family game night?" Josh asks, laughing softly as he takes a sip from his scalding hot coffee, sitting in Tyler's car in front of his house.  
  
The whole street is covered in snow and in an hour it'll be Christmas Eve.  
  
"Honestly, I faked being sad," he says and smiles up at Josh.  
  
"You're awful," Josh accuses but his voice is fond and his eyes are sparkling with mischief.  
  
"Hey, uh. I actually came here for a reason," Tyler says slowly and looks at Josh.  
  
"Yeah? What's up?"  
  
He turns and grabs something from the back, it's a little bag with actual tissue as the tissue paper. "Sorry. I ran out of the real stuff."  
  
Josh snorts and tosses it off to the side before reaching in and grabbing a small case. He laughs loudly when he sees it. "Wow. A Twenty One Pilots CD," he says, turning it over.  
  
"It's signed by the lead singer. Pretty cool, right? Almost kept it for myself," he says and grins when Josh laughs louder.  
  
He turns it over and sees it says 'Love, Tyler'. Josh can't stop smiling.  
  
"Reach in again, there's more," Tyler whines.  
  
Josh does as he's told and reaches in and pulls out headphones. "Are these the ones you stole from me?"  
  
"Dude, they're in their case. They're brand new ones. I left yours in my jeans and washed them and they're dead. But these are new."  
  
Josh grins and looks at them. They're a bright red. His favorite color. "You're amazing. I love you," he says without meaning to and then he chances a look up.  
  
"I love you too," Tyler says softly and bites his lip.  
  
"Thank you. But now I hate you," Josh says and Tyler makes a noise, looking affronted and offended.  
  
"What? You can't love confession me and then take it back."  
  
"Yes I can. Your present is inside. I didn't realize that we were gift exchanging before Christmas," he whines.  
  
"Give it to me later then."  
  
"Nah. Give me a second, ok?"  
  
"Ok."  
  
Josh runs outside screaming as the cold nips at his skin and he slips on the snow right before he stairs. He can hear Tyler's laugh from the car and he can't even care about his well being anymore. He walks inside and grabs the present from his room before running back out and getting into the car.  
  
"It's so cold," he complains, shivering and shaking as he hands the wrapped up box to Tyler.  
  
Tyler holds it up and laughs. "Josh. Who wrapped this? Your dog?"  
  
"I did!"  
  
"Did you go blind?" He asks and laughs more as he rips it up and then he stops laughing when he sees what it is.  
  
"Now you don't have to sit in silence."  
  
Tyler stares at the car radio in his lap and he blinks back the tears threatening. He thinks back to long drives home in silence. He thinks of the days where he would scream and scream and fantasize about wrapping his car around a tree. He thinks of those lonely days and nights now replaced with sneaking out and making music.  
  
His shirt was still in perfect condition then. Now it's ratty and it's got holes that are too big for him to not wear an undershirt underneath. It's slowly been tearing at the seams and Tyler hasn't even noticed. But he notices now. Notices because he's cold and he looks over at Josh and he wants to thank him. But all that comes out is "can I borrow one of your shirts?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Let's go inside," Josh suggests and Tyler agrees numbly, following him inside.  
  
His house is lit up but everyone's asleep and Josh takes him upstairs and into his room and goes to his closet. Tyler sits on the bed and plays with the hem of his shirt. He thinks of it differently now.

He sees it brand new, remembers feeling nervous about wearing it to the party.  
  
"Ty?"  
  
Tyler looks up and Josh is standing right in front of him, holding a bright blue shirt out for him. Tyler takes it gingerly, avoiding his fingers and only grabbing the material. He holds it tightly and places it on his lap before he's back to his own shirt, feeling the worn material.  
  
"He--he didn't take my shirt off," Tyler says softly and feels the bed dip beside of him. "He kept it on. I couldn't find my underwear afterwards. I threw the pants away. But I--I couldn't throw away the shirt. I don't know why I kept it. I don't know why I keep wearing it."  
  
"Maybe that's how you cope?" Josh offers.  
  
"I don't know. But-but nothing felt right on my skin after that night. Barely anything still does and this shirt felt the worst. But every day a new hole appears and it feels-Josh it feels so good. The more it rips the more it's gone," he says.  
  
"Good."  
  
"But--but I can't sit here and wait for it to fall apart. I can't wait for it to rot. I wanted it to rot on me and fall off, the weight of what happened is on this shirt and I thought if it fell apart on its own, it would take the demons with it. But I can't keep waiting."  
  
Tyler is shaking, he's shaking so hard Josh is afraid he's going to burst at the seems. He's scared Tyler's going to fall apart and blow away in the wind, finally float away into space like he's always wanted and leave Josh behind.  
  
Tyler doesn't blow away. He grabs the bottom of his shirt and pulls it off from himself. He makes a pained noise, he cries. It's apart of him. It's a second layer of skin, one that's been burned and bruised and that needed to fall off but Tyler's just peeled it off and he's exposed. The skin under it is damaged, the flesh still too raw to be exposed.   
  
He imagines the shirt as rotted flesh, flesh he had to rip off from himself with maggots hanging off the holes. It's infested and infected with the memories of a boy who held him down and took what wasn't his.  
  
He remembers the feeling of when it was finished, of feeling disgusting and feeling the stickiness of honey on his thighs, but the color of milk on his skin. He remembers the feeling and remembers when he tried to cleanse his skin by jumping into the lake, bricks in his jacket pockets.  
  
Zack found him before it was too late, but there was water in his lungs and Tyler felt his insides swimming. He thought he could cleanse himself. He couldn't.  
  
The trip to the lake sent him to the hospital. It started a rumor he was dead and Tyler had wished it was true, had prayed every night for it to be true.  
  
But he's sitting on a boys bed. A beautiful boy who loves him and doesn't take what isn't his. He's sitting alone with a boy and the only things he's scared of is losing the boy. He's scared of the boy feeling the leftovers of what the monster left in him.  
  
"I'm tired of feeling him on me," Tyler says. "I'm tired of the nightmares. I'm tired of it all," he says angrily and pulls Josh's shirt on. "I want to feel you. I want you."  
  
"I want you too."  
  
"I want you to replace the places he touched. I want you to touch where he hurt. I want to replace what he took with what you give," he explains and presses the collar of Josh's shirt to his nose and inhales the scent. "I don't want to feel him anymore."  
  
"What can I do?" Josh asks, looking at Tyler and waiting.  
  
"Stay with me."  
  
"You don't have to ask."  
  
Tyler sleeps over that night. He get an earful from his mom about missing breakfast, but he promises he'll be over as soon as possible. He's going to spend breakfast with Josh and his family.  
  
It's just his mom and three siblings. But it's nice. It feels like family. It feels like home, a second home. They're able to sneak back upstairs afterwards and they lay in bed together like they always do.  
  
Josh always said he didn't need to touch Tyler for him to feel him, and Tyler realizes that it's true. Tyler asked josh to replace the hands that hurt him and he has. He has.  
  
"I had a dream and a nightmare last night," he whispers, face close to Josh's. It's nothing out of the ordinary for them.  
  
"What was the nightmare?" Josh asks curiously, his eyes softening.  
  
Tyler grimaces before talking, "you touched me."  
  
"What was the dream?"  
  
"You touched me," Tyler says and slowly smiles.  
  
Josh smiles at that and raises his hand slowly, Tyler eyeing him wearily. "Josh, what--  
  
"Sh. It's ok," he whispers. "Lift your hand up. Trust me. Just lift your hand up."  
  
Tyler complies hesitantly, he waits for the feel of skin against his but it never comes. Josh hovers his hand in front of Tyler's, they can both feel the heat radiating from the skin, they can feel the poles of the Earth and their magnetism bringing their hands closer, they can feel the tectonic plates shifting them closer, and then can feel the pull of the moon making them gravitate towards each other but Josh never falters, he never touches. He just hovers and allows Tyler to feel the warmth of his skin from a safe distance away.  
  
Tyler grins and he moves his hand around, they both do, letting it just hover in the air. They get brave, they spread their fingers wide and let their fingers slip between the spaces and watch as they look connected. Not once does Josh touch. And not once does Tyler get scared.  
  
......................................  
  
Tyler drives home closer to lunch time and his mom is about to go off on him when she sees the shirt. "Wh-who's is that?"  
  
"Josh's. He let me borrow it."  
  
"Where's your gray one?"  
  
"In the car," he admits easily.  
  
"You changed."  
  
"It's time for a change."  
  
His mom cries. Tyler still gets in trouble but his mom gives him double servings of dessert for dinner.  
  
.....................  
  
Tyler spends New Years in Josh's bonus room with Brendon and Dallon joining them. They're all underage and so the celebrate the ball dropping with glasses of grape juice and kisses.  
  
Brendon swaps spit with Dallon while Tyler and Josh sit beside each other, closer than ever before and staring into each other's eyes, Tyler reciting some love lines from the top of his head to Josh while Josh smiles and falls more and more in love.  
  
It's enough. It always has been enough.  
  
.......................  
  
Second semester is all about graduation, about sending in applications and Tyler is terrified again. He sees others getting early acceptance letters, sees others explaining what they want and he can't explain to everyone that what he wants is to make love with Josh and listen back to it on his radio.  
  
He wants to make music.  
  
People will laugh. People will judge. And he doesn't know what Josh wants to do and that scares him more.  
  
"Tyler!" Ms. Lopez interrupts his thoughts, walking quickly to catch up to him.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I didn't receive your final draft yet," she says. "For the spoken word."  
  
"Oh yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I'll have to get it printed out. Can I just email it to you?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. Performance is in two weeks. Make sure you're ready by then, ok?"  
  
"Yeah. No worries," he brushes off and continues walking to Josh's locker.  
  
Bright blue hair is what greets him and he snorts when he sees Josh shoving a math text book into said locker. "You need that for next period."  
  
"Ugh. I hate math," he complains and struggles to get it back out. "I hate school."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"And everyone keeps talking about college and stuff," he complains and then stiffens up. "It's not bad to want to go to college but..."  
  
"It's not for everyone," Tyler agrees.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"Exactly," Tyler agrees to the agreement and clears his throat. "Two weeks."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Until I do my spoken word. You're gonna be there right?"  
  
"Oh. Uh. No. I have something better to do like sit at home and wait...for someone to entertain me."  
  
"Or you can come watch my spoken word?"  
  
"Or I can watch reruns of The Office."  
  
Tyler makes a face.  
  
"If you think I'm going to miss it you have mistaken me for someone else, babe," Josh chuckles and Tyler smiles.  
  
He's happy.  
  
..................  
  
He's nervous.  
  
His skin is crawling and his face is sweating, his hands shake and his throat closes up. Tyler doesn't know why he agreed to this. He's so nervous. He should've picked a different subject. What if he cries?  
  
He chances a glance out from the curtains and sees bright blue hair out in the crowd. Josh's sitting with Tyler's family, patiently waiting. Tyler takes a deep breath.  
  
His hands clutch at the shirt he's wearing, sliding up to the collar and tugging. It's his gray shirt. He hasn't seen it in ages, left at the bottom of his car and now it's way more ragged. It's got more tears and he feels bare.  
  
But he has to do this. He has to.  
  
"An next up, we have Tyler Joseph with his spoken word entitled Milk and Honey."  
  
He takes a deep breath and zips up his hoodie, putting the hood over his head as he steps out onto the small stage, listening to soft clapping and awkward shuffling. He coughs a bit off to the side before his trembling fingers go to his hood and slip it off his head, and then they trail down to his zipper and unzip and he's shrugging out of the sweater.  
  
His shirt is in ruins. People stare a little confused.  
  
"A cow needs to be milked," he begins, staring off into the crowd. "Bees have their honey taken so they have room to make more. The bee movie taught me that," he adds in and people laugh. "And when people milk a cow,  
Wrapping their grimy fingers around a teet and just--" Tyler makes a fist in the air and a face, pulling on an invisible cow utter and making the audience laugh again.  
  
"And no one questions why there's a guy  
With his hand wrapped around a thing that isn't his," he continues. "No one questions how it came to fly. No one cares. Is that why no one came when I screamed when you were trying to milk me dry?"  
  
There's silence now.  
  
"Because I am a cow. I am cattle. I need to be poked and prodded without my consent.  
I need to be milked," he says into the mic, whole body shaking again as memories flash before his eyes. "So you--so you stuck your hand in my pants and stroked.'  
  
"But I'm not a cow: I can't be milked.  
So you branded me with a hot needle iron.  
You shoved your name on me; in me.  
You seared it into my flesh and it's the name I cry out when I'm most in pain.  
You drank my milk.  
You let it drip from your lips,  
My wet eyes couldn't deny  
What I saw:  
My milk,  
Your lips.'  
  
"And when your fingers dipped inside,  
They came out dry.  
So you tried again, a little more spit  
And a lot more dry from my eyes.  
You must have known I didn't want it.  
You must have known from the lack of honey,  
From the lack of sweet noises from my mouth," he says, letting his fingers gently drag his bottom lip down.  
  
"You told me, big boys don't cry  
so I wept," he continues. "You told me strong boys don't let people know they're hurting,  
So I stayed Mr. Misty Eyed as you searched for your milk and ho-- No as you _stole_ my milk and honey from me.'  
  
"But you kept my shirt on, this shirt exactly," he says and he tugs on the front of it. "You took off my pants and kept the shirt because what we had wasn't sex.  
It wasn't sex.  
It was rape.'  
  
"And when you were done milking inside of me,  
You left.  
You left.  
And it was silent," he says much softer now.  
  
"And when I jumped into a lake to wash you off my skin,  
It was silent.  
And when I have nightmares about you,  
There's silence.  
And when I get angry, there's silence  
Because sometimes quiet is violent.'  
  
"So I wear the shirt you touched me in.  
I wear it as a badge of what you did,  
I find it hard to hide it  
My pride is no longer inside  
It's on my sleeve," he says, getting louder and tugging on his sleeve and it rips. "My skin will scream, reminding me of milk and honey," he says softly. "While you hide.'  
  
"But see, there is no hiding for me,  
I'm forced to deal with what I feel  
There is no distraction to mask what is real.  
And what is real is that I am still here.  
I'm still here," his voice breaks.  
  
"And though I'm weak,  
And beaten down,  
And inside out,  
You aren't here!  
You're a goner.  
And I haven't found a drop of your milk.  
I haven't found a drop of you," Tyler knows he's crying. He hears it in his voice.  
  
"So when--" he chokes up and he has to swallow a few times and compose himself before continuing, "so when people ask me how can I be so kind  
I think back to a Rupi Kaur line,  
I think of her with milk and Honey dripping from her lips,  
_Her_ milk and honey dripping from _her_ lips,  
_My_ milk and honey dripping from _my_ lips,  
_My_ milk and honey dripping from _your_ lips,  
_My_ milk and honey dripping from _your_ ,  
  
_Your_ ,  
  
_Your,_  
  
_Your_ lips,  
  
And I simply reply 'because the world hasn't been quite as kind'," he finishes softly and then bows his head. "Thank you."  
  
He walks off stage and throws up and Josh is suddenly there, is sitting next to him and telling him how proud he is. How good he did. Tyler can hear him crying too and he can also hear the audience clapping and cheering.  
  
Apparently it was a standing ovation, Tyler never got to witness it.  
  
..................  
  
Tyler lays on the quilt, eyes up at the sky while Josh turns off the lantern they had brought. He lays down next to Tyler, close but not too close.  
  
"You were amazing," he says softly and Tyler smiles a bit.  
  
He's lucky the weather finally warmed up or he'd be cold with the torn up shirt he's wearing. For once, it doesn't feel suffocating. It just feels wrong.  
  
"I cried."  
  
"You're allowed to cry."  
  
"I've cried too much about this."  
  
"Tyler, you--you are amazing," he says softly. "Literally everyday I'm in awe of you. I'm so proud of you. I don't--think about where you were months ago and think about now. You wouldn't talk to anyone and now you had the balls to go on stage and tell everyone what happened to you. To share yourself with all of those people."  
  
Tyler bites his lip and keeps staring upwards towards the sky.  
  
"You were so raw out there. So unapologetically honest," Josh whispers.  
  
"I wish you would've been up there with me,"Tyler admits. "It felt lonely."  
  
"Maybe one day we'll be on a stage together," Josh whispers and Tyler smiles at the thought.  
  
They get quiet again, comfortable in just laying in the woods behind the soccer field, lost to the outside world. He's comfortable just staying out here forever if it means he gets to become old and one with the earth with Josh. He's ok with that.  
  
"You know what scares me?" Josh asks, the first to break the silence.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Stars," he says seriously. "Specifically exploding ones."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Like you know how black holes are made right?" Josh asks. "It's when a star implodes on itself. Like that tiny thing we see down here is probably already exploding or it's already a black hole, it's just that we're too far away and time hasn't caught up to it," he explains. "Time is relative, non linear.'  
  
"Same goes for time in black holes and if you went through a black hole, you would end at the beginning of a white hole, constantly going through space and time forever and ever with no real concept of it. Because time doesn't exist. Time is relative, so the end of the universe is the start of the universe and that's really scary to me. What scares me is that the birth of something so beautiful is the end of something so beautiful. Stars," he concludes proudly.  
  
"What about exploding souls?" Tyler asks after a few moments of silence.  
  
"What're those?"  
  
"They're souls with no concept of anything. Constantly going through space and time, they're the beginning and the end of a life."  
  
"I think exploding souls are scary too, then," Josh admits.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Because I'd want to be there holding their hand when they finally explode so we'd explode together, be in the constant nothing forever. We could go back to being made of stardust and we could be a star together, constantly exploding and imploding until our souls become one and the concept of two never even existed," he says.  
  
Tyler turns his head and smiles. "You're not scared of me turning into stardust and blowing away?"  
  
"No. I'd follow after you," Josh says firmly. "My star dust would chase your star dust across ten, twenty, a hundred lifetimes until I find the one where you return to me."  
  
..........................  
  
Tyler dreams a lot, now. He doesn't know how to sleep alone and he doesn't have nightmares. But he dreams. He tells Josh this over the phone one night when they can't have a sleepover.  
  
"What was the dream?"  
  
Tyler tells him about Slowtown. A fictional town where everything is perfect and slow. "We're in Slowtown and everything slows down. A day here is a year there," he explains. "And our touches linger for hours on end and our smiles stay on our faces and it never gets dark and we stay outside and the sun never hurts. Nothing hurts in slow town. I don't have nightmares and you have me. All of me."  
  
Josh likes that dream a lot. Tyler does too. He also likes the dream where he and Josh run away. Tells Josh about that one too and Josh tells him he's had the same dream.  
  
The dream is more and more frequent as graduation nears. Tyler gets accepted into college. Josh buys a van. He says it's to travel in. He says he's leaving as soon as he can. Tyler pretends it doesn't hurt.  
  
And when graduation comes and they're in their cap and gown, Tyler is nervous. He's scared. He doesn't want this change. He wants Josh.  
  
They don't talk on graduation, they're too busy with their own families. Tyler sits on the other side entirely and watches as Josh gets his diploma and he cheers loudly even though he's not supposed to. But Josh doesn't go back to his seat. He gets his diploma and leaves and Tyler tries not to cry.  
  
When he gets his, he does the same thing, running out after him, hoping he's left a note or something for goodbye. He runs to his car and stops when he sees the van parked next to his car and Josh is sitting on the hood of Tyler's car, waiting.  
  
"Why haven't you left yet?" Tyler asks, out of breath and panting.  
  
"Because you're still here," he replies.  
  
Tyler nods. "Can I get a ride?" He asks.  
  
"Where are we going?"

Tyler looks around, trying to think of where but he can't come up with anywhere he'd want to go. So he changes the subject. "Do you still think about running away?" Tyler asks and Josh smiles.  
  
"Everyday."  
  
"Why haven't you?"  
  
"Because you haven't," Josh answers.  
  
"I got accepted into college," Tyler says.  
  
"Do you want me to drop you off there?" He asks and Tyler shakes his head.  
  
"No. Can you drop me off in Slowtown?" He asks and Josh nods.  
  
He nods and Tyler and Josh miss the rest of graduation. They miss their graduation parties. Tyler misses his arrival date for the dorms. He misses the first day of classes, he misses his whole first semester.  
  
He's too busy being packed in a van with Josh and making love through music.  
  
.............................  
  
They take their first song they wrote together and tear it apart, putting it back together and renaming it. It goes from 'Heartbeat' to 'Holding on to You'.  
  
Tyler's Milk and Honey spoken words gets the same treatment, it gets frankenstiened into several different songs. It's enough to make an official first album. A self titled one.  
  
It's enough. It's enough.  
  
It's enough that their first show has twelve people in the crowd. Then a hundred. Then a thousand and Tyler is terrified of the crowd. He's so scared. So he grabs Josh's hand and holds it tightly back stage until they have to perform.  
  
That's the performance that has Tyler and Josh scouted and being signed to a record label.  
  
......................  
  
"I think I found Slowtown," Tyler whispers one day, his fingers dancing across Josh's arm and Josh's arm has broken out in goosebumps.  
  
He was touch starved.  
  
"You did?" Josh asks, a little delayed, too focused on that piece of skin that's being caressed.  
  
"Yeah. I think we're in it," he says and Josh smiles.  
  
It's enough. It's enough.  
  
................  
  
Tyler laughs when he sees the sky darkening. He laughs and he smiles wide as it begins to pour and the roadies are upset about the rain but Tyler is excited. He's been talking to God. Asking for a sign. Asking to help him feel ok again.  
  
It pours. It's terrifying. The lightening strikes too close to the stage and they have to cancel the performance and Tyler doesn't get upset. He grabs Josh's hand and pulls him along and Josh follows, like he promised he always would. He follows him out into the rain and Tyler feels it soaking into his skin.  
  
He doesn't feel like he's drowning anymore. He feels like it's a cleansing. His hand feels clean inside Josh's. He feels clean.  
  
Tyler stops them in the middle of the lot and grabs Josh's face and pulls his face to him. Josh grabs his waist as Tyler closes the distance between their mouths. He presses his lips firmly to Josh's and Josh keeps his promise, he fills Tyler's breath with meaning. And Tyler finds a brand new place to hide.  
  
They're soaked to the bone but Josh can't stop, he's addicted. He's starved and he kisses Tyler until Tyler is breathless and he realizes he doesn't want to ever breathe again if it means separating from Josh. He wants this forever. He wants to drown again, but not in water. He wants to drown in Josh.  
  
.............................  
  
Tyler wakes up shivering. He's so cold he feels it in his bones and on his third toe where it's gone numb. He curls in close to Josh's body heat, hiding in his hold.  
  
"I can get used to this," Josh grumbles sleepily, grinning and opening one eye to look at Tyler.  
  
"I can't. I hate the cold," he replies slowly.  
  
"I love you."  
  
Tyler smiles and Josh shifts around, lays on his back and pulls Tyler so that he's laying his head on his chest, Tyler's ear over his heart. He can hear it thumping. He can feel it thumping.  
  
His fingers move from being curled up tightly to drawing lazy shapes on Josh's toned stomach. He groans and his abs clench. "Ty," he sighs and Tyler smiles.  
  
"Can I touch you?" Tyler asks softly, biting his lip nervously.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
And Tyler does. He turns over and straddles the thick legs and leans in and mouths along the hard collar bone. He feels Josh's breath on his hair. He feels the vibrations of Josh's groan under his finger tips in his chest, he chases it up his neck and to his mouth and Tyler dips his fingers into the awaiting mouth.  
  
He feels his tongue swirl around his digits and Tyler makes a small noise. He leans in and removes his fingers, replacing them with his tongue and he tastes Josh's stale morning breath but he doesn't have it in him to care.  
  
"Can I touch you?" Josh breathes into Tyler's mouth.  
  
"Yes."  
  
And Tyler is suddenly on his back, he's suddenly arching said back and exposing his throat as Josh attaches his mouth to the sensitive skin and sucks. Tyler moans, grabs at his back and scratches desperately as he gets worked up.  
  
More. More. More. His head screams for more, his body squirms for more, and his mouth begs for it. So Tyler gives in. He has no other choice. He doesn't want to choose anything else.  
  
He trails his mouth lower, getting distracted by pert, little nipples that beg to be licked and bitten until they're oversensitive. He licks lower until he reaches the jutted out hip bones and he bites at them until Tyler's hips buck up and he whines. He whines and Josh has never heard anything more beautiful coming from his mouth.  
  
"Is--is--oh god, Tyler. Is this ok?" He manages to ask, hooking his fingers on the boxers and Tyler nods quickly. "No. Tyler. Is this ok?" He asks, voice serious this time.  
  
"Yes," Tyler says coherently and looks down at Josh and waits. "Please."  
  
That's all Josh needs before he's pulling the shorts down and freeing Tyler's cock. It curves upwards towards his belly and Josh wastes no time in licking it and then wrapping his hand around it. It's a little dry, but Tyler hasn't been touched in years.  
  
He bucks and whimpers and falls apart beneath Josh. And when Josh adds his mouth, slipping him all the way in and swallowing around the head, Tyler can't hold back. He comes in Josh's mouth and watches as he swallows it.  
  
And Tyler is eager. He's eager to reciprocate. He gets Josh under him, he takes control. He lets Josh show him how he likes it and Tyler controls what he does and how he does it when Josh comes, it's on Tyler's tongue but it drips from his mouth and down his lip and to his chin. Josh pulls him up and licks the come from Tyler's chin and chases it to his mouth.  
  
Tyler can taste himself and Josh. Tyler likes the taste.  
  
..................  
  
The first time they have actual sex, it's right after a concert. It's a big one. Biggest one to date and they're in this hotel, no longer needed the van to sleep in.  
  
Josh is content with blow jobs and hand jobs. He's fine with giving them and getting them. And Tyler even likes it when he eats him out and Josh never thought he'd have this but he's content with it. He's happy. It's enough. It's enough.  
  
But Tyler wants more.  
  
So Josh spends what feels like hours just eating him out and stretching him. He takes his time to worship his body, to kiss the hidden scars, to chase away the bad memories. He touches where Tyler was touched before and erases the dirty handprints left there and replaces them with love bites. His mouth breaks the blood vessels until the skin and Tyler is left purple in so many areas but he moans through it all. He loves it all.  
  
When Josh finally, finally slides inside, Tyler is on top and Josh is holding him up. Tyler grips his shoulders tightly and leaves scratches. He cries.  
  
He cries because he's so full and he swears he feels Josh in his stomach and it's just so fucking much. And when Josh moves, Tyler throws his head back and moves too. Their hips work together and they chose after their release.  
  
Tyler screams when he orgasms this time, he hides his face in Josh's neck and he takes his nails down his back. He tries to hold back. He tries to keep going and he tries to tell Josh to stop so Josh can finish with him but Josh ignores him and tells him it's ok. It's ok.  
  
It's ripped out of him. It tears through him and he screams Josh's name over and over again and he trembles and shakes and he feels so good. So fucking good. And josh finishes inside of him and paints his thighs with milky white honey that he greedily licks up as soon as he slips out of Tyler.  
  
And he stays the night. He's there in the morning when Tyler wakes up. He's there and they shower together and Tyler gets to finally feel what shower sex feels like and he decides it's definitely happening again.  
  
Josh stays. He stays. And Tyler isn't scared.  
  
.....................  
  
Josh is the only one allowed to touch Tyler. Tyler shies away from other people, he lets Josh shake important people's hands and if people are there to interview him, Josh stands in the middle and doesn't allow them to touch. Josh keeps his promise. He protects Tyler in the day and at night he tears him apart and Tyler lets him. He loves it.  
  
He didn't realize how starved he was for touch too.  
  
....................  
  
Tyler rummages through his bags, trying to find a shirt to wear. Three years and all he has are a few t shirts to wear for a performance and the rest have been deemed 'non performance only' by josh because he hates the way the smell afterwards. You can't get stage sweat off of the clothes, not fully.  
  
So he's stuck with limited options. He keeps  
Looking until his hand pulls out something he doesn't expect. A torn up gray shirt. It never rotted on his body like he had always imagined.  
  
He didn't even know it was still alive. He grips the cloth tightly and he wants to tear it up in his hands. It ruined his life.  
  
Tyler stops that thought and looks around. He's in a dressing room and about to perform for the first time to thousands of people. He's touring with his best friend, his lover. He can touch again, even if it's only josh. He's happy.  
  
He looks down at the shirt and puts it on. The weight is familiar. It's wrong. But it's right. This is how it started and how it'll end, in this shirt. He's going to burn it after this concert. But he wants to wear it so that the stage sweat is the last thing it smells like.  
  
Josh doesn't notice it, not until they're performing the first song and he fucks up the drumming part because of it. He eyes Tyler wearily, afraid. But Tyler's not afraid.  
  
He performs with the shirt. He rips off one of the sleeves during car radio. And he accidentally gets too close to the fans and one of them rips off the other one.  
  
He continues to perform, to bare his skin and to lay his heart out for the world to see. He's vulnerable, so vulnerable in this shirt that he feels took so much from him. But it gave him room for more. So much more.  
  
So when the last song comes, he feels fucked. It's Trees. He sings the verses just fine, performs it how he usually does. And then it nears the end.  
  
"I want to know you, I want to see. I want to say," Tyler sings and he thinks back to the forest.  
  
To the time where Josh came to him and he followed him into the trees where they both could hide and that was the first time Tyler could breathe. The first time he realized he wasn't alone.  
  
"Hello!" Tyler screams into the mic and his skin is screaming and his shirt is so, so torn and he takes a running start and goes to the barricade.  
  
He hears Josh playing louder so Tyler screams the lyrics louder and jumps on the little metal stairs and people reach for him. He fights his instincts to turn away, to flinch from the touch. They're not here to hurt him. These people are crying, they're singing back the lyrics. They're hurting too.  
  
Everyone single of of them is singing his lyrics back to him and they all have their own stories, they all have their own scars, they all have their own demons. Tyler is tired of carrying his. He was tired of carrying it when he jumped into the lake, that's why he jumped.  
  
So he jumps into the crowd, tired of carrying the burden alone. Tired of pushing everyone away. He keeps screaming his lyrics as they carry him on top of the wave, keeping him afloat. He's not drowning anymore. He's floating away just like he wants and people tear at his shirt and he lets it happen, let's them rip it from his body and lets it get lost and trampled in the crowd and he lets them touch and touch and touch. They carry him around and back to the stage and he lands right where he started, where he belongs, back with Josh and Tyler laughs, and laugh, and laughs. He's free. He's free. They freed him. Josh and thousands of people who all believed in him.  
  
The song is over and Josh stands up and walks over to Tyler, grabbing his hand and Tyler lifts it high into the air. He's panting, greedy with the air around him. He takes a big, deep breath and releases it. They bow and come back up and Tyler can't help but grab Josh's face and kiss him, vaguely aware of the taste of honey in his mouth.  
  
He pulls away after a moment, lets his forehead rest against Josh's, feeling so connected to him and everyone else around him. It's enough. It's enough.  
  
"We're Twenty One Pilots and so are you!"

 

**Author's Note:**

> I used a lot of different inspirations from different writers.  
> Rupi Kaur is a big one. She's fantastic and makes me cry.  
> Placebo. Also fantastic.  
> Tongari and 25 Lives which is beautiful.  
> And of course, Tyler Joseph and his writings which I warped and morphed to fit this fic.  
> Funnily enough, this was written all in one day and on my phone. All 17,000+ words.
> 
> Anyways. You can always contact me at messing-with-the-muffin-man.tumblr.com


End file.
